Brexit: Fulfilling the wishes of the dead

It is supposed to be honourable to respect the last wishes of the deceased. But is it also reasonable to sacrifice the life perspectives of those remaining?

(Source: TASR/AP)

Juraj Mesík is the climate and energy advisor to the Slovak Foreign Policy Association

The Brexit statistics are well known. In the memorable 2016 Brexit referendum, 17,410,742 Britons voted to leave the EU, while 16,141,241 cast their votes to remain. Leavers prevailed over the remainers by 1, 269,501 votes.

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Since the Brexit vote in June 2016, a higher number of people than this have died in England and Wales alone. Only 5.7 percent of all deceased women and 9.2 percent of deceased men were younger than 49 years of age – around 1, 300,000 of those who passed away between the Brexit vote in June 2016 and the beginning of 2019 were 50 or older. Approximately 80 percent - over 1 million - of these senior citizens participated in the Brexit referendum. Other sources put their participation even higher, at 90 percent of those over 65.

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It is known, that 61 percent of men over 50, as well as 60 percent of women over 50 (and 66 percent of women over 65) voted to leave the EU.

A simple calculation shows that over 300,000 English and Welsh men and over 330,000 English and Welsh women who voted to leave the EU in June 2016 are dead by now.

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